Who we are

A photo of Miranda Prag, a white woman with brown hair in a ponytail. She is wearing a blue hat, sandy coloured top and blue trousers, and is climbing up a sand dune.
A headshot of Karis Okereke, a black woman with dark hair sweeping across one eye, wearing a black top.
A headshot of Joanne Limburg, a white woman with shoulder length brown hair, wearing a white patterned top and round glasses.
A selfie of Simi Davies, a brown person in a black shirt contrasted against a dark bedroom in the shade. They have brown eyes, winged black eyeliner with dramatic orange eyeshadow and their hair is almost black, medium length and wavy.
A headshot of Lisa Gee, a white woman with short dark hair, wearing a navy blue jacket, orange shirt and glasses.
 
A headshot of Eleanor Hughes, a white woman with chin length brown hair. She is wearing a dark grey top.
 
A headshot of Katya Balen, a white woman with chin length dark hair, wearing a navy blue top with small yellow starts on it.


Miranda Prag

Director and co-founder
Miranda co-founded Mainspring in 2015, and has run it ever since. Outside of Mainspring, she is an artist, performer and boat dweller. She mostly makes solo performance (the more rolling around on the floor the better), and has been lucky enough to tour her work nationally and internationally. She has also worked as a drama facilitator and access support worker. She loves climbing up hills, being in water, making things out of wood and coming up with outlandish schemes.

 

Karis Okereke

Trustee
Karis has a background in fundraising, partnerships and research in the arts and nonprofit sectors and has worked for museums, startups and charitable organisations. Having previously fundraised for projects that support learning disabled people to express themselves creatively, this inspired Karis to join Mainspring Arts as a Trustee.

 

Joanne Limburg

Chair of Trustees
Joanne Limburg is an autistic writer and Creative Writing lecturer. Her books include Letters to my Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism and the poetry collection The Autistic Alice. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been involved with Mainspring Arts since she taught its first group of writers in 2017.

 

Simi Davies

Social Media Marketing Assistant
Simi has a background in photography, curation, graphic design and art direction. From empowering decolonial education in the mental health sector to climate justice, she uses her diverse skill set to advocate for causes she’s passionate about. Despite struggling throughout her entire education, she was diagnosed with dyslexia (with the potential for more) with just 2 A level exams left and has had many negative diagnosis experiences since. This is why she is motivated to educate people on neurodivergence and empower adults on the spectrum, especially those who have been failed by the system, that self diagnosis is valid and support is out there.

 

Lisa Gee

Trustee
Lisa currently works 2.5 days a week as Assistant Professor in Creative Writing and Digital Media at the University of Birmingham. She spends the rest of her time doing too many things including writing, editing, keeping to-do lists and crocheting badly. She has one daughter (a significant upgrade), and lives in Harlesden north-west London with her partner and two ageing cats. She achieved her ADHD diagnosis in 2022, and her autism in 2023. She was last mistaken for a small boy in autumn 2022.

 

Eleanor Hughes

Trustee
Eleanor works across the health and justice sector as a Speech and Language Therapist, identifying and supporting the communication differences of neurodivergent children and young people. She is passionate about removing barriers within society and enabling access, through a combination of workforce training, active-allyship and promoting the self-advocacy skills of others. Eleanor identifies as multiply neurodivergent. For her this means the way she thinks, processes and interacts is influenced by a combination of different conditions and traits. She has been diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADHD, and is interested in creativity as a means of empowering self-expression and communication.

 

Katya Balen

Co-founder
Katya co-founded Mainspring in 2015, and was a co-director alongside Miranda until 2022. She is a children's author and freelance editor.